Few can riff as well — or as lucratively — as the alumni of “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” the 1990s cult TV show about a human and his robot buddies skewering B-movies while stuck in space.

And former host Michael J. Nelson, aka Mike Nelson, should be applauded for taking clever commentary to a place where it had never successfully gone before: crowd-funding site Kickstarter. A campaign seeking financial help from strangers ended Wednesday, raising nearly $264,860, about five times its goal.

But it may be Nelson’s move to give power to the people that really encouraged riffing to thrive. Nelson moved to San Diego and created RiffTrax in 2006 as an outlet to offer fans his quirky commentary on movies. A few years later, he opened the system to anyone, with iRiffs, which enables people to create and sell their own movie commentaries.

“I’d say the market definitely exists and is fairly strong,” said Jim Hanson, an Ohio resident who resurrected his old Cinematic For The People riffing troupe in 2010 to take advantage of the resurgence of riffing. RiffTrax’s iRiff platform has, he said, “raised the visibility of the ‘riffing community’ on the whole, making it accessible for people who would never have known that this sort of thing was going on otherwise.”

For those just tuning in, let’s rewind a bit. “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” affectionately abbreviated as “MST3K,” was hard to miss in the 1990s. The show featured three silhouettes superimposed on the bottom of a movie screen jabbering away as a cinematic stinker played on the big screen. The wisecracking commentators were two robots named Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, and Nelson, who replaced the show’s creator Joel Hodgson as host in 1993. Nelson had been head writer since 1989, the second year of “MST3K,” when Comedy Central picked it up.

While the show ended its 11-year run in 1999, “MST3K” lived on through reruns, the MSTie’s (its fans) and eventually, alumni efforts like Nelson’s RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic, a movie-riffing project headed by Hodgson. While Hodgson’s troupe stuck to the B-movie genre, RiffTrax expanded to blockbusters and respected movies like “Lord of the Rings,” “Casablanca” and “Star Wars.”

“I moved to San Diego with this in the back of my mind,” said Nelson, who created RiffTrax while working for Legend Films in San Diego. “I had a couple of ideas, but it was just the notion that there had to be a way to riff on blockbuster films.”

RiffTrax, which soon added “MST3K” alums Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy, skipped the hassle of negotiating film rights. Instead, it mainly sold its riffs as downloadable MP3 files and offered free syncing software. Users needed to buy the DVD separately and sync the movie to the RiffTrax. For a few movies, the combined riff and video were available as a DVD or download.

Michael J. Nelson, RiffTrax founder

Fame: Former star of “Mystery Science Theater 3000”

Worst movie? “Birdemic,” the 2008 romantic-horror film. “This is not a recommendation. This is my own worst movie that’s fun to watch that I happen to find amusing for personal reasons,” Nelson qualified.

While RiffTrax and Cinema Titanic periodically riffed live at local theaters, it was RiffTrax that gave its audience their own turn with iRiffs. Fans could record their own commentaries, upload them and sell them on the iRiff store. Today there are hundreds of user-created riffs on RiffTrax. Some funny, some serious. The iRiffers charge between $0.75 and $14.99 and make 50 percent of the sale.

“When ‘MST3K’ first went off the air a decade ago, there was a vacuum left because it was fairly unique,” said Cinematic For The People’s Hanson, who produces semimonthly riffs on public-domain movies. “Since then, a lot of different groups, both professional (The Film Crew/RiffTrax, Cinematic Titanic, Incognito Cinema Warriors XP) and ‘fan’ (Mystery Fandom Theater 3000, Mystery Spatula Theater 11) have tried to fill the void. With the technology finally catching up in the last few years, and with the launch of the iRiff platform through RiffTrax, it’s a lot easier to make riffs now.”

The tools and exposure encouraged amateurs, like Gary and Erin Wickering, to jump into riffing. The Des Moines, Iowa, couple hopes to turn it into a full-time job.

“Yes, this is more than a hobby. Anyone that has put out as many tracks as we have with a joke every 10 seconds on average, they’d have to be crazy to do it just for kicks,” said Gary Wickering, who with his wife is one of RiffTrax’s more-prolific riffers and better known as Gary and Erin Slasher of Hor.riff.ic.

PAVING THE WAY

“None of this could have been possible without RiffTrax offering us the opportunity to try this ‘iRiff’ experiment they rolled out a few years ago,” he said. “Having evolved from MST3K, to Film Crew, to RiffTrax, by inspiring writers and performers like us, Mike, Kevin and Bill have ensured that the legacy of riffing will carry on after they have put down the mic for good and kick back and just be worshipped.”

RiffTrax continues to pave the way for other riffers. With the funds raised on the crowdfunding site, RiffTrax is working on what may be the riffing world’s grand coup: Live riffing the worst movie ever (as voted by RiffTrax fans) — the chaste vampire saga “Twilight” — with the studio’s blessing.

RiffTrax will now take the money and work out an agreement with Summit Entertainment and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. If that doesn’t succeed, RiffTrax moves to the second-worst movie ever, “Batman and Robin.” Failure to secure those rights means it’s on to negotiate for the third-worst movie ever, “Catwoman.” And so on.

“We don’t have the luxury of getting a movie that’s a first-run movie. And people are always suggesting those movies like, ‘Why don’t you do “Titanic?” ’ We don’t own ‘Titanic.’ But if people really want us to do it and put something (money) behind it, we’ll do it,” said Nelson, whose success allows him to riff full time. In fact, he bought RiffTrax from Legend Films last year with partner and former Legend CEO David G. Martin.

TALKING TO STUDIOS

“We didn’t think it was possible to approach a studio without some sort of hook. This isn’t just us doing it but a whole bunch of people. It’ll help us convince a studio that we’re not just a bunch of nuts,” Nelson said. “They (studios) are open to the idea. They’re just running a business. If there’s money in it, they’re interested. The biggest problem is they have a relationship with the stars who don’t want to be made fun of.”

He has a good feeling about getting the film rights to do a live riff. He’s already begun conversations with several studios and calls talks “encouraging.”

“They understand what we’re doing. We’ve been around long enough and they know that this isn’t going to make their film the laughingstock for all eternity,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’re at the whims of the studio where things go to die. But we’re very motivated.”

The expanding world of riffing (thank you MST3K)

Tips on making a iRiff

• Use a script to remember what you want to say.

• Don’t talk over the movie’s dialogue.

• Recording software doesn’t have to be expensive. Audacity, at audacity.sourceforge.net, is free and has great features.

• Software like Sony Vegas and Pro Tools let you merge video and riff during editing to keep edits in sync.

• Optimal MP3 settings are a bitrate of 96k and a frequency of 44,100 Hz.

• Add an ID3 tag to the file so it’s easier to find in MP3 libraries.

• Make sure listeners are in sync by using a visual cue (like a logo or credit) in the movie to “anchor” your riff.